Government Says Man’s Last Name Is Too Offensive For License Plate

The Canadian Department of Transportation is refusing allow a man to keep his surname on a license plate after someone complained about the plate being offensive.

Lorne Grabher said he has had the plate for 25 years and it was unfair that the Nova Scotia Registry of Motor Vehicles has decided to do away with it after one complaint. He told the CBC he was excited to get the vanity plate because it was a gift for his father’s 65th birthday in the 1990s.

“When the plates first came out, I was so excited about it — this is what I wanted to get for my father. My father put it on the motor home, and he traveled to many states, he traveled across Canada … nothing was ever said,” Grabher said.

Someone, somewhere took issue with the plate and issued a complaint with the department of mother vehicles. And since DMVs in Canada are apparently as politically correct as they are in the U.S., that one complaint was enough.

The department told Grabher that the plate was misogynistic and promoted violence against women and it would not be renewed, CBC reported.

Grabber, who is proud of his German heritage, said the government in Nova Scotia is discriminating against his name.

Grabber said he was aware that people might be upset by the plate since the leaked recording in October of then-Republican candidate Donald Trump saying he liked to grab women, but Grabher said that that has nothing to do with his license plate.

WABC reported that the personalized plate program in Nova Scotia was introduced in 1989 and it allows the state to refuse any words it deems offensive or socially unacceptable.

Transportation Department spokesman Brian Taylor told the CBC that the department understood that Grabher’s name had German roots, but since that information wasn’t available to the general public who view the plate, the name was considered offensive.

Grabher wondered if he would have to remove his name from the phone book and his wife would have to change the name of her company because the name is “offensive.”